Chapter 4: Si vic pacem - 1 In Nomine Patris
by Darkpenn
Summary: The High Table declared him deceased. They were wrong. Now he will come for them.


**John Wick, Chapter 4: ****_Si vic pacem_**

Author's Note: This is the first part of a new story collection by Darkpenn. It begins soon after the end of the movie _John Wick, Chapter 3: Parabellum_.

XOX

**1.****In Nomine Patris**

1

The Adjudicator walked into Administration, and up to the desk of Operator, Control. She took a disk from her pocket and began to slide it across the countertop.

"Don't bother," said OC. "I know who you are and I've been expecting you." She took a drag on her cigarette and exhaled the plume of smoke at the Adjudicator. "Seems you've had a busy week," she said.

"I have had busier," said the Adjudicator, ignoring the smoke and returning the disk to her pocket. She placed her black leather gloves on the countertop. She looked around at the office. Ancient phones, past-gen computers, ledgers and filing cabinets, even a chalkboard. Tended to by tattooed women in sleeveless shirts and tight skirts. She wondered how it could possibly function. And yet somehow, _somehow_, this was the most efficient Administration under the Table. Never a leak, never a question.

"And if you have been expecting me you will know that I have come to ensure that the file on John Wick is properly closed, to end my business here," she said.

OC nodded, and gestured to a young woman. "Elizabeth," said OC. "Show our … visitor … the current file."

Elizabeth had the file in her hand. "You should understand that this is just the latest part," she said. "The complete file takes up an entire cabinet. I had to create a separate index for the collection." She put the file on the countertop.

"We like to keep things in order," said OC, in a tone that said 'unlike some people'. She blew a smoke ring at the Adjudicator.

"Then your order should show that the … colorful … career of Mr Wick has come to an end," said the Adjudicator. She leafed through the file. "All this over a puppy," she said.

"Not really," said Elizabeth.

"Elizabeth is something of a Wick expert," said OC.

The Adjudicator raised a manicured eyebrow, surprised that anyone would disagree with her. But she let it go. "Well," she said. "Now she's an expert in nothing." She flipped through the file to the most recent entry.

OC held up a stamp. It said DECEASED.

"Since you witnessed him being shot, perhaps you would like to do the honors," she said.

"And the signature," added Elizabeth.

"The … signature?" said the Adjudicator.

"As final confirmation that he is, well, dead," said OC. "Necessary in a case like this. So if the High Table ever wants to check back, they know exactly who to hold accountable." She offered the Adjudicator a pen.

"Since you are certain about it," said Elizabeth, "there should be no problem with confirmation."

The Adjudicator hesitated. "This … this is a rather irregular procedure," she said. "Surely the confirmation signature should be done by Operator, Control."

"I'm not the one who saw the body," said OC. "You _did_ see the body, didn't you?"

"I … I saw him shot. Several times."

"Well, that settles it, then. But just as a matter of curiosity, Elizabeth, how many times has Mister Wick been shot in the course of his career?"

"117," said Elizabeth.

"117?" said OC. "Damn, that is a lot. By the way, Adjudicator, who pulled the trigger? I understand that it was Winston, manager of the Continental, is that right?"

"Yes. Why do you ask?"

"I have to know who to send fifteen million dollars to. Since you are sure Mr Wick is dead."

The Adjudicator winced. She did not like the idea of Winston collecting the bounty, after all the trouble he had caused her. This whole business had become extremely expensive to the High Table. Platoons of hi-tech soldiers were not cheap, not to mention the money paid in advance to Zero. But Winston had indeed killed Wick. Had he not?

"Do what you will," she said.

"As soon as you stamp and sign." OC again offered the pen.

The Adjudicator took it. She hesitated once more. _I saw him shot_, she thought. _I saw him go over the edge. Could I be mistaken? No, of course not. I am an Adjudicator of the High Table. I do not make mistakes._

She applied the stamp and then signed.

"It is official," she said. "John Wick is dead. The paperwork says so."

"Must be right then," said Elizabeth, taking the file.

"So you can close the file and have done with it," said the Adjudicator.

"Maybe not just yet," said Elizabeth.

"For … procedural … reasons," said OC. "In case there are … consequences. I'm sure you understand."

"He is dead," said the Adjudicator.

"As you say," said OC. "After all, you saw him bleeding from being shot. Repeatedly. At close range. Must have made something of a mess."

The Adjudicator had a sudden flash of memory. Wick had been shot and had then staggered backward. He had cried out: _"Winston!"_

But there had not been any blood.

Then he had gone over the edge.

But there had not been a body.

Elizabeth was looking at the stamp and the signature on the file.

"Accountability," she said, "is a wonderful thing."

The Adjudicator stared at her. "Indeed," she said. She picked up her gloves, turned, and strutted out.

OC blew a final column of smoke after her. "A person who works at being an asshole," she said. "I wonder what she looks like naked." She glanced at Elizabeth. "117, eh? Is that true?"

"It is."

"Huh. How about that."

XOX

2

"I have been waiting a long time to do this," said Earl. He ran his fingertip along the edge of the knife. "And I intend to enjoy it."

"Just don't enjoy it too much," said John Wick. Not that he could do much about it. Even leaning back in the ancient, padded seat in a back room of the King's headquarters in the Bowery made every part of his body hurt.

Earl applied the lather. "Don't worry, I have only killed a few people with this," he said. "None of them accidentally. Trust me, when I get through you'll feel like a new man."

"It might take more than a shave and a haircut," said Wick.

Earl began to scrape the accumulation of growth from Wick's face.

The King entered, still leaning on his walking stick. "Ah, Mister Wick, I see that you are getting the full Earl treatment. Fortunate, as you have a visitor. Two visitors, in fact. Mister Wick, please try to not kill anyone. Remember you are in my home. Well, what passes for my home these days, as I have decided it is best to be under the Table's radar for a while."

The two visitors entered.

Winston. Charon.

Wick started, began to get up –

"I wouldn't do that," said Earl. He scraped the blade through the lather on Wick's throat.

"John, John, it's good to see you alive," said Winston.

"More or less," said Wick. "I fell off a twelve-story building because of you. After you had shot me."

"Pretended to shoot you," said Winston. "For the benefit of our charming Adjudicating friend. You don't think I would hand you a gun with real bullets and tell you that you could shoot me, do you?" He took a pistol from the briefcase he carried. It was the same one that he had when he first met Wick in the Administrative Lounge. The same gun he had used to shoot Wick on the roof of the hotel. 'Shoot'.

"For a very improvised plan, it played quite well," put in Charon. "We trusted that you would quickly get the idea."

"You could have at least put a mattress or something on the street," said Wick.

"Next time," said Winston. "But I am not here to give you a get-well card. I have something for you. Fifteen million dollars in untraceable bearer bonds. The bounty on your head. Courtesy of the High Table, passed along through Administration in our beloved city. It seems only fitting that you should have it."

He took a large envelope from his briefcase and placed it on the little table near the barber chair.

He said: "And there is this. An accompanying letter. It doesn't really say anything, but … tell me, do you notice anything odd about it?" He handed it to Wick.

Wick studied it. "It's typed," he said. "On a typewriter."

"Yes," said Winston. "Now who, I ask, uses typewriters in this day and age?"

"Just where is this Administration?" said the King.

"Nobody knows," said Winston. "There is no trace of them. Not so much as a digital fingerprint."

"Because they use typewriters," said Charon. "Very old communications systems. Unhackable technology. Not so much as a photocopier, probably."

"But they would know about the High Table," said Wick. "Where it meets, and when. It moves around, city to city. But there must be a piece of paper somewhere with the next place. So there is a reporting line."

"Ah," said Winston.

"If Administration does everything manually there must be a lot of people," said Wick.

"And it would have to be tightly organised, to have remained secret," said the King. "People from … dubious … backgrounds, I would think. People who can be controlled. People who have no qualms about blood on the floor, as long as it is neatly organised. They might be hard to spot. Unless you had eyes on every street corner. Which, as it happens, I do."

"Women," said Wick. "Women who have limited social connections."

"Ah," said Winston again. "In that case, this sounds like a job for a charming, handsome man."

"Yes," said the King. "Now where, within our conspiratorial little circle, do you think we could we find a charming, handsome man?"

They all looked at Charon.

XOX

Elizabeth was glad for the walk to the subway station. She had been working extra hours for the past week, clearing the backlog of cases caused by John Wick. Everything was now in order, all the files she was responsible for – T to Z – were closed. Even Zero's lengthy file had been stamped DECEASED and archived.

But not the Wick file. Even though the Adjudicator had stamped and signed it several days ago it remained resolutely open. Some things just refuse to die.

She mentally calculated, not for the first time, how much longer she would have to work at Administration. About four more years. She had already done six. She still believed that it was a good deal. Better then prison. She had just staggered through the first year of an eight-year jail term when a recruiter came to her with an offer of early parole. He had asked if she had office skills. If you count cooking the books to cover embezzling and fraud, she had replied.

He had laid out the conditions. You do what you're told, you say nothing about it to anyone, you don't have friends. Ten years, and it pays well. You break the Rules, you end up in the East River.

So she took the job. What the hell else was she going to do?

They had even given her a uniform: sleeveless blouse, pencil skirt, a carry-bag. When she was outside the office she was supposed to wear an overcoat to cover it, but today was a hot New York day. So she was carrying the coat, her bag on her shoulder. It was, after all, a nice day to be free. Relatively speaking.

"Excuse me, miss," said a deep, mellow voice.

She looked around. It was a tall black man, impeccably dressed. Glasses.

"Perhaps," he said. "you could tell me the way to the Museum of Modern Art."

She hesitated. The Rules said: no connections.

But this was just someone asking for directions. An attractive someone. The Rules didn't prevent you from giving directions to someone, did they?

She smiled. "Sure," she said. "You go down this street for two blocks and then turn left, go for another block and there it is."

Suddenly, her bag was snatched from her shoulder by someone running past. Homeless guy.

"Fuck!" she said, as the guy ran into an alley.

"I will get it," said the handsome fellow. In a moment he was running after the thief.

It was only about ten seconds before the handsome fellow came back, out of the alley. He was carrying the bag. He handed it to her.

"When he saw that someone was chasing him he threw it away and climbed over a fence," he said. "I do not think he had time to take anything but perhaps you should check."

She did. The only important thing was her Administration entry card, which was still there.

"That was good of you," she said. "I would be in trouble if I lost this."

"And thank you for the directions," he said. "Perhaps, miss, I could buy you a cup of coffee to mark our little adventure."

Elizabeth hesitated again. She looked at the guy. He was … _very_ … handsome.

But … the Rules …

Fuck, it was only a cup of coffee. The Rules didn't say anything about coffee, did they?

"Okay," she said.

XOX

Earl studied the screen of the laptop computer, checking that the tracking device that was now hidden in the lining of the woman's handbag was working. It was.

XOX

3

"She did not tell me anything," said Charon. "Which tells us much."

"Enough security to be intimidating," said Winston.

They were again in the King's headquarters. They were all watching Earl's laptop computer, as a red dot moved across a map of the city. It stopped.

"Well, how about that," said the King. "The Empire State Building."

"Elevator to the twelfth floor," said Earl. "Then up the stairs to the thirteenth floor. When she stopped for a few seconds just before she entered the stairwell, that was probably to use the reader there for the card Charon mentioned."

"So Administration is on the thirteenth floor but the elevator doesn't stop there," said Wick. "The twelfth floor has the security. If employees have to pass through it then all visitors would have to do so too."

"I know that you like the head-on assault but it's unlikely to be effective here, John," said Winston. "Something more along the lines of subterfuge is needed. I should say, if it isn't already clear, that I do not wish for the High Table to know that I am in any way associated with this. Until the time right. The same goes for my trusted associate Mr Charon."

"And I am happy for them to believe that I am dead," said Wick. "Until the time is right."

"You mean you want some sort of disguise?" said Earl. "I can do that."

"Just don't go too crazy," said Wick.

"I can supply other boots on the ground," said the King. "Winston, do you have a plan in mind?"

"Yes," said Winston. "And it involves typewriters."

XOX

The doors of the elevator of the twelfth floor slid open. Wick – in a Rastafarian-style wig, glasses, and colourful beret – Earl, and two others of the King's men stepped out. They were all wearing overalls and pushing trolleys with carboard boxes.

Wick looked around. Intimidating security was right: surveillance cameras and heavy-set men with automatic weapons.

Earl led them to the front counter. "Delivery of typewriters for the thirteenth floor," he said to the guard. "Damn, these things are hard to find. The boss told us to bring them here and someone would sign for it." He held out a sheaf of papers.

The guard behind the desk looked at his clipboard. "We don't have any notification of a delivery," he said.

"Well, that's just great," said Earl. "Fucking great, man. Either our paperwork people screwed up or yours did. Look, man, if we don't make this delivery we don't get paid. We need to be able to say we brought them here and dropped them off, okay? Can we just leave them here until it gets straightened out? You've got a storeroom or something, right? I mean, this company still uses typewriters, right? Fucking weird if you ask me but who cares as long as everyone gets paid, right? Which includes us. Honestly, man, we can't take them back to the store and say there was a snafu with the order. Boss would fire us, the guy's an asshole but a job's a job, you know what I mean? I bet your job isn't always a barrel of laughs either, am I right?"

The guard stared at Earl. Eventually, he said: "I suppose they can go in the storeroom for the time being."

"Great, you want us to take them through?" said Earl.

"No, our people will do it," said the guard. He gestured for some of his colleagues to take the trolleys away, which they did. He signed Earl's paper.

The four of them went to the elevator. Earl took a small device from his pocket. "About now they should be right in the middle of the office," he said. "So … " He pushed a button on the device.

Immediately, there was a series of explosions – not huge, as the point was only to set off the stun gas.

The four of them took gas masks from their pockets and put them on. They headed for the stairwell door, making their way through the fallen bodies and choking people. There was a card reader for the door. Wick took a small slab of plastic explosive with a detonator embedded in it from his pocket and put it on the lock. When it exploded the door flew open. Wick and Earl went up; the others stayed on the twelfth floor to add to the chaos. Wick removed the disguise with a sigh of relief.

The door to the thirteenth floor was not locked. They went through, drawing guns.

On the thirteenth floor everything was proceeding as normal, with no indication of the attack below. They looked around, and everyone looked back in surprise.

"Fuck, it's full of beautiful women," whispered Earl to Wick.

"Yes, yes it is," whispered Wick back. He said in a loud voice: "Who is in charge?"

"That would be me," said Operator, Control, raising her hand. "Is there something we can do for you?"

They went to her desk.

"I believe that you are the surprising, unkillable John Wick," said OC. She waved for Elizabeth to join them. She gestured for everyone else to get back to work.

"If you know that then you know that I will do whatever is needed to get what I want," he said. "Which in this case is information."

"Ah, information," said OC. "Always about information."

Elizabeth stepped forward. She said: "I am responsible for your file and there is something I would like to know. We have you down as having been shot 117 times. Is that correct?"

"Not entirely," said Wick. "There was a graze in Montreal. If you include that one it would be 118."

"Ah, Montreal," said Elizabeth. "I'll think about whether the file requires amendment. I am not sure a graze counts."

"You do not seem surprised to see me," said Wick to her.

"I am the keeper of your life story, Mister Wick. I doubt that there is anything you could do that would surprise me."

"Mister Wick, what is it that you want?" said OC.

"I want to know the location and timing of the next meeting of the High Table," he said. "Do you have that?"

"I do, but of course I cannot give it to you. I would be dead within a day." She nodded at a small camera perched in a corner of the ceiling.

"If you don't give it to me you will be dead within a minute," said Wick. He pointed his gun at her. "And so will everyone here."

"Elizabeth," said OC. "Do you think Mr Wick would do any such thing?"

She shook her head. "He has killed a remarkable number of people, true," she said. "But he has a code. He does not kill innocents. Which we are, in this case. Sort of."

OC looked at Wick and the gun in his hand. She opened a file on her desk and leafed through it. The John Wick file. "Are you bluffing, Mister Wick?" she said.

Wick lowered the gun. "Yeah, guess so," he said.

"Fuck, he might not do it but I'll shoot you just because you remind me of my fourth-grade teacher," said Earl, cocking his pistol. "Vicious bitch."

OC looked at him. "Yes, most probably," she said. "Tell me, Mister Wick, why do you want to know about the High Table?"

"I would like to pay them a visit," he said. "Balance some scales, close some books, that sort of thing. A chat. A serious chat. And retrieve something."

"You know that the High Table is the most protected organisation in the world, right?"

"Yes."

"And you still want to do it?"

"Yes."

OC considered. She opened her desk drawer, rummaged around a little, and extracted a cigarette. She lit it and exhaled a thin column of smoke.

"I can understand that you have loyalty to them," said Wick.

"That might not be the right word," she said. She shuffled through the file again.

"Not at all," said Elizabeth.

OC sighed. "Nevertheless, Mister Wick, I cannot give you what you want," she said. "Although I enjoy thinking about the consequences of your reappearance for a certain over-dressed bitch I know. She signed this file to make your death official. Do you want to see it?"

"Not really."

"I think you do, Mister Wick."

She turned the file to face him. She pointed to the Adjudicator's signature.

And there was another piece of paper there as well, small, hardly a scrap. With an address and a date.

"So now you are back from the dead, you can be on your way," said OC.

"I guess I can be," said Wick. "On my way." He holstered his gun.

"Hey, does this mean that I can't shoot anyone?" said Earl.

"It does," said Wick. "Sorry."

The two of them left Administration, collected their colleagues from the twelfth floor, and left the Empire State Building.

_London,_ thought Wick. _The next meeting of the High Table is in London. In five days._

END (to be continued)


End file.
